


And You Remember Your Father As Beastly

by Nerves



Category: Trollhunters (Cartoon)
Genre: Gross, M/M, POV Second Person, Step-parents, Trans Character, mentions of transphobia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-16
Updated: 2018-05-16
Packaged: 2019-05-07 19:57:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14678349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nerves/pseuds/Nerves
Summary: Walter has been a part of your family unit for a long time, although when asked to nail down the specifics, you can't quite do it. The tension between you reaches a breaking point when you find the Amulet, and the truth that comes along with it.





	And You Remember Your Father As Beastly

**Author's Note:**

> ∠( ᐛ 」∠)＿ Hello, thanks for clicking on this! This is a very loosely structured, mostly experimental collection of related chapters that will follow somewhat of a plotline, but will be updated rather infrequently. Warnings will be added as needed, but that should be obvious from the premise - which is that Barbara and Walter are married, Jim and Walter have some Bad Chemistry and then (as Moogle once said) "Whoops Strickjim Happens." Please enjoy!

You were six when your father went away, leaving behind you and your mother. Sweet, tender boy that you were - it tore you apart, but the pain on your mother’s face as she watched him leave was somehow worse than the hurt in your own chest. In the months after he left she would smile at you and tell you that fairies had whisked him away, and that he’d be back before long. You could hear her crying many nights, and then she told you that the fairies had taken him forever, and then she didn’t talk about him at all.

You were always a bright boy. You knew that there was no such thing as fairies, and that James left you behind because he didn’t like how you would insist on wearing boy’s clothes and how you would always tell him that you wanted to be called Jim Jr. When you changed your name years after he left, you considered if you really wanted the burden of his name latched onto your neck like a vice choking the life out of you, but you told yourself that perhaps he deserved some form of remembrance for the few things that he gave you. Despite the chain that you wrapped around yourself, you fared much better than your mother. Perhaps it was finishing medical school, or your father leaving, or maybe the difficulty of raising you on her own - whatever it was, with every year that you grew, so did the bags under her eyes.

They’ve grown smaller over the years as you’ve become bigger, but as you look across the counter at her now as she sits on a stool, you can still see something tired in her eyes. You set down a cup of plain black tea in front of her and then lean across the counter and kiss her on the forehead, and she gives you a soft, sweet smile, the kind that makes her cheeks look rounder and her eyes brighter, and there’s still some of her youth left behind the growing lines of her face. You tell her good morning and go back to fixing breakfast for her and for him and maybe for you if you have the time. The smell of oven baked bacon and omelettes summons the other resident of your house like an apparition behind you, and you nearly jump as he reaches around you to grab a glass from the cupboard.  _ Good morning, Young Atlas. _ It’s how he greets you every morning, the exact same words in the exact same way, and you can almost mime him perfectly because you have every inflection of his voice memorized.

When your mother met Walter, your world changed in the most subtle ways. The two of you had become a good duo without need of a father figure as part of your dynamic, but he fit in with ease nonetheless. His rhythm is steady and smooth and calm, and its tempo matches you and your mother’s perfectly, as if he were made for you. He steps away from you now, moving towards the fridge to get the carton of orange juice. He’s fully dressed for the day, as always. He and your mother start talking as they do every morning, and you finish up making breakfast as  _ you _ do every morning. Like every morning, you focus on plating while Walter stands close to you, and like every morning it’s perhaps a bit  _ too _ close, but it’s always been like that so neither of you question it. There is no discomfort between you - how could there be?

When the three of you eat, he stands with you in the kitchen across the bar from your mother, and he laughs and smiles and sighs adoringly at Barbara like the doting husband he is. His hand accidentally brushes yours as he reaches for his juice, but you say nothing, and neither does he. The food you made is delicious.  _ Well done, Jim. Another success, Jim. You’re far too good to your mother, Jim. _ Her praise is heavier when he’s around, but you don’t mind it. You love your mother and you love making her happy and you love it when she tells you how much she values you. Walter gives you a coy smile and a squeeze on the shoulder and thanks you before he leaves the kitchen. Your mother watches him go with girlish wonder, and when she looks back at you she seems nearly giddy. It’s the most natural thing in the world to see your mother so happy. The more time passes, the more difficult it becomes to remember what your world without Walter was like.

* * *

 

You squint against the sunlight as you sit in the passenger seat of Walter’s car. He doesn’t make small talk with you - he never has. You feel as if maybe he tried once or twice, but you can’t remember when or what he said, and so you think that maybe you imagined it. You think you’ve imagined a lot of things about Walter, but you don’t worry too much about it. He doesn’t have a bad bone in his body, and there’s no point in letting your imagination about him run wild.

As you drive, a piece of classical music plays over the car’s radio, and it sounds familiar but you don’t know it for sure. You glance at him, and you find yourself fixated for a moment on the curve of his nose.  _ Bach? _ You guess, but you really haven’t the faintest idea, and he smiles a bit at the sound of your voice nearly spitting out the harsh name. His gaze is warm as he glances at you for a moment before looking back at the road.  _ Brahms _ , he tells you.  _ Different Johann. _ You nod and smirk like you understand, but the truth is that the only classical music that you know is what he plays when he drives the two of you to the high school. You look at his eyes for a moment and think to yourself that his eyelashes are pretty, and then you look out the window and watch as buildings pass by. You see your classmates slowly making their way to the school, and you see Toby Domzalski and you wave to him excitedly. He doesn’t see you, but that’s okay, you’ll see him at school, and you’ll walk home with him later. He’s your best friend in the whole world, and maybe the two of you were closer before Walter, but you would still do anything for him.

When you look back at Walter, he’s smiling that smile of his that is oh so strange, and you feel butterflies in your stomach. When he pulls the car into the employee lot and parks it, he looks at you, still smiling, and says  _ Right on schedule _ . You think to yourself that the way that he says  _ schedule _ is strange, charming, and oh so horribly British.  _ Shed-yule _ . You silently mouth the word to yourself as you unbuckle and get out of the car, and when he tells you that he’ll see you at lunchtime you’re still mouthing it to yourself.  _ Shed-yule _ . You mouth it to yourself for the rest of the day, sometimes mimicking his accent under your breath, and maybe once in biology class you accidentally start answering a question with a bad, vaguely English accent and Steve Palchuk snickers at you, but no one says anything about it. When you meet Walter outside for lunch, he opens his mouth to speak, and before he can you say to him  _ Right on shed-yule _ , and he smiles at you broadly and when he laughs the sound is both deep and light, and your stomach is twisting in knots again. When the two of you talk between bites of chicken salad ciabatta sandwiches, you find yourself enamoured with his way of speaking, and some kind of warning bell goes off in the back of your mind, but you pay no attention to it. Your knee bumps into his, and neither of you move away.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this first one like... almost a year ago, but since I decided to make this into a series of short chapters/drabbles, I thought I may as well post it. Thanks again for tuning in!


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